The 'Family Ties' role was the first of many gay roles that I've ended up playing. I remember that I made them laugh, and it made me feel good, 'cause it really cracked them up.
Back in the day, coming out was something very personal. You began by acknowledging the truth, first to yourself, then to close family and friends. Those of us more in the public spotlight, though, also had to 'come out' to the press.
I don't know if I'm a gay icon or not, but with 'A Taste of Honey,' the audience were so touched by the whole story that it certainly helped matters. The characters were so sympathetic that it was as if you had met them.
About 1998, my best friend, Katey Red, was the first transsexual male to come out with bounce music. And I background Katey for about two years. And then that's when the game totally switched when me and Katey jumped in it.
My kind of gay, meeting a woman and falling in love, is a different experience because it wasn't anything about 'Oh, I've always been gay and I'm breaking the chains.'
The writers have slowly taken the show, with subjects other gay shows have dived right into, slowly. It was over a year before Will even started to date.
I'm not even sure I want to use the term 'coming out.'
Any therapist will tell you that when you're ready, you will come out. To be outed means you weren't ready.
On YouTube, if anything, coming out as gay or bi or trans explodes someone's popularity.
I came out at 17.
My coming out was just so boring.
I didn't have a coming out moment.
There is no universal coming out process, so far as I know.
I've never played a gay character on screen, so that would be interesting. I've never played a gay character, and that would fascinate me because I'm not gay, so that would interest me.
When I came out to my parents, I knew that they knew. My father was like, 'Are you sure?' I literally said, 'You took me to see Barbra Streisand at Madison Square Garden.'
My coming out, like most people's, was and is a gradual process - for no matter how out one is, there are always situations when one's with people who don't know, and one has the choice or, sometimes, the necessity of coming out to them.
I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward.
Someone will say, 'Shura's album is about being a gay woman in London.' Umm, I feel like my album's just about me. I am a gay woman, and I live in London... It's not about being a gay woman in London.
I came out to my dad in Christmas of '94.
